Tough Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous, #2)(81)

Courage flees me. Calm abandons me. And terror, pure terror turns my blood to ice in my veins. After a time, I knew Calvin had a bad temper and that he was prone to violence, but never would I have suspected that he might set me on fire. Yet he did. That’s when I realized that I had no idea the depths to which his mental illness extended. He could be capable of anything. Even murder.

With speed uncommon in someone as lanky as Calvin, he lunges for me before I can react, grabbing me by the front of my shirt and pulling me to my feet to sling me across the dining room table. I go skittering along the top before I crash down onto the chair at the end and topple it to the floor, the edge of the seat cracking against my hip. I gasp in pain, my fear nearly blinding me as I scramble to get my bearings.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to punish you, Kat. For leaving me. For making me hurt you. For spreading those legs for someone else. You’re mine, Kat. You always will be.”

My addled mind spins with solutions and scenarios, for any possible way out of this without getting myself killed. He set me on fire last time. I can’t give him the chance to hurt me again.

I stall until I can find a way, find something with which to defend myself. “I didn’t think you’d want me with all my scars,” I tell him. I swallow past the balloon of fear that inflates in my throat and I scoot into a sitting position.

Calvin frowns. I’m not sure what to make of it. Is he confused by my tactic? Disgusted by the mention of my disfigurement?

“I thought you knew how much I loved you. Yes, I hate the scars, but I’ll pay for plastic surgery to get rid of them, and you’ll be my beautiful Kat again. At least for a little while.”

For a little while? That sounds . . . ominous.

Absently, I push scraps of the broken chair out of the way so that I can find my balance and make my way to my feet. I pause as my eyes settle on one of the splintered legs. For a few seconds, I zone out of the present as I stare at it, as I think of the implications of it. As I look at it, I drift into a strange place of calm.

The jagged wooden end holds my attention, almost as though it’s beckoning me. Calvin’s angry voice is nothing more than a distant backdrop to the peculiar trance I’ve stumbled into. In this peaceful world, I don’t distinguish between Kat, Kathryn or Katie. I don’t live a life as splintered as the chair leg I’m gazing at. I’m simply a girl who’s tired of hiding, who’s tired of being hurt. Who’s tired of only surviving. I am a woman who needs to stand up. To fight back. To get the missing part of myself back. To be whole again.

In the fuzzy recesses of my mind, I realize that if I don’t stand up now, if I don’t start to live now, I never will. Just like Rogan said, I’ll die a little more each day.

Fight to survive. Fight to live.

I’ve fought to survive. For years now, I’ve survived. But I need more. It’s time to fight to live.

It’s time to live.

My movements have a slow, surreal quality to them at first, almost dreamlike. I reach for the makeshift stake. I curl my trembling fingers around it. I use my free hand for balance. I come carefully to my feet. And I face Calvin.

Although fear is still with me, it’s muted by this strange calm and, somehow, I’m bolstered by the feel of the cool wood of the chair leg against my palm. I flex my fingers around it, rubbing the sharp tip against my thigh as I study Calvin.

“If you leave me again, it’ll only be worse, Kat. I didn’t think I could hate you as much as I loved you, but I was wrong. You made me see that. God, you were such a bitch! What you did to me . . .”

I tilt my head as I watch him. His face is bloodred as he rants, a single vein standing out like a thick rope right in the center of his forehead. I wonder briefly that it doesn’t burst and send him face-first onto my floor to drown in his own blood. I actually smile at the vision.

Calvin stops talking. I notice only because his lips cease to move. All I hear is the beat of my own heart, pounding in my ears.

I see spit on his chin. I focus on it for a few seconds, oddly fascinated by the foamy little drop. I notice only in the most absent of ways that it begins to get closer. It’s that minute detail that shakes me from my thrall.

Taking a step back, I hold out one hand and raise the other, wielding the stakelike piece of wood like a weapon. A weapon that I will use if I have to.

“I want you to leave, Calvin. Right now. And never come near me again. You and your father can go to hell. Stay away from me. Stay away from Rogan. Let this drop or I swear on all that is holy, you’ll regret the day you ever met me. Get out, Calvin. I won’t ask you again.”

At first he looks confused. Then stunned. Then, when his eyes bounce from me to the stake and back again, almost insulted.

I raise my chin defiantly. My cards are on the table. I’m taking my stand. And it feels good. I feel good.

But then he starts to laugh.

“Oh, Kat! You can’t be serious.”

Surely the girl who took his abuse for months wouldn’t fight back. Surely the girl who he set on fire wouldn’t dare to stand up to him. Surely the girl who he murdered in all the ways that count couldn’t have found a reason to live.

Surely not.

The hell you say!

Righteous fury explodes from my chest like a bomb, raining adrenaline into my blood. It’s like rocket fuel. It propels me into motion. Offensive motion.